Dog Ways

12/12/2025

Have you got your dog's Christmas activity booked yet? 🎄

We have two spots left for Christmas mantrailing on Thursday 18th at Bowley Scout Camp, full day of festive shenanigans and food: https://bookwhen.com/dogwayslancashire/e/ev-sk30h-20251218083000

Also two spots left on our Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree scent detection special at the Adventure Neighground on Saturday 20th, a mix of indoor/outdoor scentwork and a festive lunch: https://bookwhen.com/dogwayslancashire/e/ev-sjc23-20251220090000

The mantrailing day is suitable for all teams who have undertaken an introduction session previously, and the scent detection event is suitable for dogs who are already searching for a minimum of either Kong, gun oil or catnip.

Themed events are always tons on of fun for both dogs and humans 🤩

Take the first steps on your Dog Ways journey... About Dog Ways

10/12/2025

Last night's mantrailing teams worked super hard in some very challenging conditions. As well as a warm and very windy evening, there was a fair amount of human and canine contamination in the working area

Despite the challenges, teams Kali, Bella, Homer, Albie and Millie did a great job and finished on a high note. Well worth playing out for 🤩

06/12/2025

Today's Scent Detection class had some specific goals set at the beginning of the session: to improve their indications on high, low and inaccessible hides.

We also worked on handler skills, looking at how to encourage and direct our dogs when they needed assistance, without actually doing the search work for them.

Lovely to see teams Burt, Tully and Blaze increasing in confidence and accuracy as the session went on. These guys tackled high, low, inaccessible hides and item searches with increasing calmness and thoughtfulness during the exercises.

It's wonderful to see how the dogs learn to process scent and problem solve to alert handlers to hides the can't quite reach.

Superb work today, everyone 🥰

06/12/2025

❓ Is What You Read Real ❓

I'm starting to see this crop up more and more in my facebook feeds, probably because 99% of what I do and read on this profile is related to dogs and animal welfare.

You've probably seen them as well - cute animal stories that make you chuckle or that you can relate to. A moment of online entertainment that you have no reason to doubt the authenticity of.

But keep in mind that with the rise of AI, and with 'content creator' and 'influencer' becoming actual jobs that earn money with every read and click, you might not actually be reading something that's real.

An example of this was a humourous Great Dane story I came across a few days ago. Having Great Dane clients, I could totally relate. So imagine my disappointment when just a couple of clicks into that story, it turned out that the content was actually stolen from the Great Dane's real owner and was unrelated to the person whose content I was reading - except that it earned them a huge bunch of likes and follows for their post and profile.

Less than an hour ago, I came across the story again, from a different facebook profile. Word for word the same as the Great Dane story. Only this time, the dog had been given a new name and a new breed - German Shepherd. The same AI-generated fake image was present on the post, but this time updated to show the breed in question. And the hashtags at the bottom of the post?

Two dozen celebrity names included to force the post to show up on posts and searches related to those celebrities. Nothing to do at all with dogs. Just another way of racking up clicks and views for a content creator.

So please keep an eye out when you're engaging with this sort of activity. There are some genuine canine-related content creators out there, and you'll be able to spot them through consistency of posts. But some of the content out there is at best fake and at worst duplicitous and designed to manipulate both readers and algorithms displaying this info.

I can't do anything about these fake-content stories (except report them (TPTB on FB don't care), block them, and move on) but what I can do is promise clients reading this page that:

- You will never see AI-generated posts on my FB page, website, or printed materials. Every single word is my own - even that erroneous tautology that occasionally slips through my brain filter (is there anything more heinous?)

- You will never see AI-generated pictures on my FB page, website, or printed materials. The images I use are my own, my clients' (posted with permission), or sourced from a genuine photographer/digital artist and permitted usage under the Creative Commons Zero licence

- Every post or business profile I share will be related to actual real-life people or situations. If I recommend other trainers or businesses, it's because I know them to be reputable, and if I share posts, it's because I know they're 'real' and not just clickbait to earn somebody on the other side of the world money through engagement

For the curious, I've posted images of the fake content below, but blanked out names and profiles, because the last thing these people need is more exposure and clicks. Consider this both a rant about the sanctity of online content, and a cautionary tale about believing everything that you read.

Happy weekend to you and your dogs! 🐶🙂

06/12/2025

Some Facebook issues have delayed the pictures of Tuesday night's mantrailing session, so here they are now in all of their blurry glory! 🤣

We had a great time playing with partial contamination of the trails, with teams Bella, Homer, Winnie, Cooper and Dougal perfectly selecting the correct trail to follow at each contamination point 💜

Dougal also highlighted how easy it is for working breed dogs to switch to a more natural behaviour when he picked up the scent of 🦌 and treated us all to a fine rendition of the song of his ancestors, heard throughout the woods and all the way back to the car park 🤣

We managed to get his focus back on hunting for humans instead of Bambi by taking him away from the deer smell and running a few short hunting trails for him. He quickly remembered that chasing humans is just as much fun (and pays better) than chasing wildlife.

Thankfully, mantrailing is done with dogs on a long line, otherwise we may have been out in that woods for a very long night 😬

01/12/2025

Saturday's Scent Detection class saw teams Tully, Blaze, Caleb, Burt and Betty continuing their work on stable searches. Some new items to explore this week, creating some fun new hiding places. Everyone did an amazing job on locating their hides, with some really spectacular indications shown throughout the session. Absolutely love seeing the dogs' confidence grow with each passing week 🥰

30/11/2025

Fantastic work from Saturday tracking teams! The ground was damp and the weather turned foggy, but the dogs did an amazing job on their individual tracks!

Betty completed her UK Sniffer Dogs Silver Tracking Part 1, while Jude achieved his UK Sniffer Dogs Bronze Tracking Part 2. Indie and Burt carried out some progression tracks, and overall the teams did a wonderful job at keeping focus throughout the morning 💕 Huge congrats to both Indie and Betty, who are acing their indications on their silver tracking items! It goes to show how much work everyone is putting in at home 🏡

It's great to see the handlers and dogs learning to work together as a team 🥰

And a big thank you to the Adventure Neighground for allowing us to use their driest field following Friday's deluge of rain and hail 🥶

27/11/2025

On Tuesday evening the mantrailing teams had a very frosty 🥶 evening to contend with!

Our first time trailing in a new venue, and teams Homer, Bella, Kali, Jude and Millie did an absolutely fantastic job of finding their trail layers 💜

We'll definitely be coming back here very soon to try some trickier, more technical trails, and it's also the perfect venue for trying out double blinds. Can't wait 🤩

Great work guys, and well done on remaining upright despite the black ice! ❄️

P. S. The camera still sucks 🤣

24/11/2025

Belated pics of Saturday's Scent Detection class, where teams Blaze, Boudie, Betty, Sassie, Burt and Caleb tackled a variety of tricky finds in the stables after some warmup hides in the cabin. A mixture of high, low and inaccessible finds provided just the right amount of challenge for the dogs - tails didn't stop wagging all day! It's great to see the dogs' confidence increasing throughout the session 💜

23/11/2025

Little Burt did an amazing job in tracking class yesterday! He worked on multiple tracks in four separate areas, and managed to track in a field full of sheep with absolutely no problems at all - a real testament to the power of the spaniel nose 🤩

His job was made more challenging by the heavy fog, which worked to obscure much of the terrain. Great to see his focus, and watch him work a little more steadily throughout the session 💜

22/11/2025

Nothing like a little early morning fog to make things interesting for the dogs on tracking class 🤩

21/11/2025

I was hoping the new camera would take better night time pics of the dogs... Alas, it was not to be 😓

So here are a few blurry pics of Winnie, Bella and Homer, who absolutely aced their backtrack exercises on Tuesday evening's mantrailing session 🤩